The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

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But "laypeople particularly sympathize with Apple" in a case like this, Meurer said. "Confusion or not, they simply think Apple should capture as much value as possible with its design choices."

There's plenty of evidence that the late Steve Jobs felt this way -- he reportedly vowed to "go to thermonuclear war" over what he saw as Google's copying of Apple interfaces in its Android smartphone software. The grudge may date back to his humiliating experience in the 1980s, when Apple tried, and failed, to sue Microsoft over similarities between Windows and Apple's operating system (itself a direct descendant of software developed at Xerox PARC.)

Apple's victory over Samsung is "moving the marker of what's mainstream" said Meurer's coauthor Bessen, an economist who studies the effects of patent law on innovation. Big companies have the lawyers and the money to build ring fences of utility and design patents around their products so only the largest and best-financed competitors can even think of entering their markets, he said.

Even software patents at issue in the Samsung case would have been considered a stretch a decade ago, he said. The Wright brothers engaged in an epic patent war with rival Curtiss at the dawn of the aviation era, he noted, but at least that was "over the real technology of how you steer an airplane."

"Here we’re talking about a patent on scrolling a list and when you get to the end of it it bounces, something that’s really trivial," Bessen said. "It’s a nice feature, but it’s never what the patent system was designed for."

Samsung has vowed to appeal and it has some good avenues to pursue, Meurer said. Unlike with most civil jury verdicts, which are given great deference by appeals courts, with patent appeals the reviewing court can take a new look at the fundamental question of what the patents actually covered. If the appeals court decides to narrow the scope of the patents, it can throw out the jury verdict and call for a new trial.